Timeline visualization for call center processes

ABSTRACT

A reporting system is utilized to generate timeline visualization information characterizing a process in a call center. The reporting system comprises a report server, a graphical server, and a database. The report server receives a request for a report, relating to one or more specified aspects of the call center process, from a user terminal, and generates a query to the database. The report server utilizes information retrieved from the database responsive to the query to generate a report for delivery to the user terminal. The report comprises at least one timeline having a plurality of image identifiers associated therewith. The graphical server supplies image files corresponding to respective ones of the image identifiers to the user terminal to thereby permit generation of a visualization of the timeline at the user terminal.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to call centers in which voice calls,e-mails, faxes, voice messages, text messages, Internet service requestsor other types of communications are distributed among a number ofservice agents for handling.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Call centers, also commonly referred to as contact centers, distributecalls and other types of communications to available service agents inaccordance with various criteria. A problem that arises in such callcenters involves the presentation of complex, detailed historical datarelated to call center processes. Call center managers need tounderstand the activities and states of many different entities,including agents, calls, queues, trunks, and the like, from manyperspectives. For example, a call center manager might want tounderstand why calls are being placed on hold for long periods of time,how agents are spending their time, what agent behavior led to aparticular customer complaint, etc.

A typical conventional approach is to present detailed information inthe form of lengthy, plain tabular detail reports. By detailedinformation, we mean information about specific events, such as calls,transactions, etc. This is in contrast to summary information likecounts of calls handled by agents. A call center manager can beoverwhelmed with the number of items returned by current detail reports.For example, a given detail report may be in the form of a tabularlisting of every call processing action taken for every call handled bya particular agent. The detailed information may be extracted by a callcenter reporting system, loaded into a database, and then used togenerate a tabular detail report. However, understanding the informationin such a tabular detail report can be unduly time-consuming and may nothelp the manager recognize inappropriate agent behavior and otherproblems.

It is therefore apparent that a need exists for improved techniques forpresenting call center process information, so as to overcome thedrawbacks associated with the above-described tabular detail reports.More specifically, what is needed is a concise and intuitive visualpresentation of call center process information through new graphicalvisualization techniques that are compatible with and delivered througha reporting platform.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides methods and apparatus which improve themanagement and presentation of call center process information. Moreparticularly, the invention in an illustrative embodiment providestechniques for graphical visualization of call center processinformation so as to facilitate understanding of call center operation.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a reporting system isutilized to generate timeline visualization information characterizing aprocess in a call center. The reporting system comprises a reportserver, a graphical server, and a database. The report server andgraphical server in the illustrative embodiment comprise a reportingplatform and a graphical servlet, respectively, and may be implementedon a single common processing device or on different processing devicesin a set of such devices. The report server receives a request for areport, relating to one or more specified aspects of the call centerprocess, from a user terminal, and generates a query to the database.The report server utilizes information retrieved from the databaseresponsive to the query to generate a report for delivery to the userterminal. The report comprises at least one timeline having a pluralityof image identifiers associated therewith. The graphical server suppliesimage files corresponding to respective ones of the image identifiers tothe user terminal to thereby permit generation of a visualization of thetimeline at the user terminal.

In the illustrative embodiment, the timeline may comprise, by way ofexample, distinct symbols representative of respective events of thecall center process and distinct line styles representative ofrespective states of the call center process. As a more particularexample, in an arrangement in which the call center process to bereported on comprises the handling of one or more calls by a particularagent of the call center, the timeline events represented by thedistinct symbols may comprise one or more of a queued event, an offeredto agent event, a completed event, an accepted event, a contact heldevent, a call disconnected event, and an agent disconnected event.Similarly, the timeline states, represented by the distinct line styles,may comprise one or more of an in queue state, an alerting state, anactive state, an on-hold state and a wrap-up state. Numerous alternativecall center processes, events, or states, and associated symbols, linestyles or other types of images, may be used to provide timelinevisualization in accordance with the techniques of the invention.

The present invention in its illustrative embodiments provides a numberof significant advantages over conventional techniques. For example, thedescribed techniques advantageously provide concise and intuitivegraphical representations of event and state details for calls and othercall center processes, in the form of timeline visualizations, and canbe configured to deliver the timelines through otherwise conventionalreporting tools. Conventional tabular detail reports are replaced withimproved reports that present call center process information in a muchmore compact and understandable form, thereby making it much easier fora call center manager or other user to monitor agents and other callcenter entities.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention willbecome more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the followingdetailed description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a call center system in which the presentinvention is implemented in an illustrative embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram of a processing device of the FIG.1 system.

FIG. 3 is a tabular listing of a call trace report for a given agent ofthe FIG. 1 system.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a call timeline.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are tables listing respective event and state elementsand corresponding visual representations thereof utilized in a callcenter timeline visualization technique in an illustrative embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a graphical display that may be generated inthe FIG. 1 system utilizing the visual representations of FIGS. 5A and5B.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an exemplary processing flow associated withgenerating a graphical display such as that shown in FIG. 6.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Although the invention will be illustrated below in conjunction with theprocessing of calls in an exemplary call center, it is not limited touse with any particular type of call center or communication processingapplication. For example, the invention is applicable to the processingof incoming communications, outgoing communications or both. Thedisclosed techniques can be used with automatic call distribution (ACD)systems, telemarketing systems, private-branch exchange (PBX) systems,computer-telephony integration (CTI)-based systems, as well as incombinations of these and other types of call centers. A call center inaccordance with the invention may be configured using any type ofnetwork infrastructure, such as, e.g., asynchronous transfer mode (ATM),local area networks, wide area networks, Internet Protocol (IP)networks, etc.

The term “call center” as used herein is thus intended to include anytype of contact center, ACD system, telemarketing system or othercommunication system which processes calls or other service requests,including voice calls, video calls, multimedia calls, e-mail, faxes,text chat or voice messages as well as various portions or combinationsof these and other types of communications.

The term “call” as used herein is intended to include any of theabove-noted types of communications as well as portions or combinationsof these and other communications.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative call center 100 in which the presentinvention is implemented. The call center 100 comprises a distributionsystem 102 which is coupled between trunks or other communication lines104 and agent terminals 106. The system may include an arbitrary numberN of agent terminals, denoted 106-1, 106-2, . . . 106-N in the figure.Calls or other communications are stored in call queues 110 until readyto be assigned to available agents. Available agents may be enqueued inagent queues 112. The queues 110, 112 may each be divided into aplurality of separate queues based on skills required to process a givencommunication, as is well known. A selector 114 is operative to assigncalls or other communications enqueued in call queues 110 to availableagents enqueued in agent queues 112.

The distribution system 102 may be, for example, a PBX-based ACD system,or other type of ACD system. It should be understood, however, that thepresent invention does not require the use of an ACD system or any otherparticular call processing hardware, software or firmware configurationin distribution system 102.

Additional details regarding conventional aspects of call processing ina system such as distribution system 102 can be found in, for example,U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,903, issued Apr. 27, 1993 in the name of inventorsJ. E. Kohler et al. and entitled “Automatic Call Distribution Based onMatching Required Skills with Agents Skills,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,793,issued May 18, 1999 in the name of inventors A. D. Flockhart et al. andentitled “Waiting-Call Selection Based on Anticipated Wait Times,” U.S.Pat. No. 6,192,122, issued Feb. 20, 2001 in the name of inventors A. D.Flockhart et al. and entitled “Call Center Agent Selection thatOptimizes Call Wait Times,” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,903, issued Sep. 2,2003 in the name of inventors A. D. Flockhart et al. and entitled“Methods and Apparatus for Service State-Based Processing ofCommunications in a Call Center,” all of which are commonly assignedherewith and incorporated by reference herein.

The distribution system 102 in call center system 100 of FIG. 1 iscoupled via connection 115 to a reporting system 120. The connection 115may comprise a conventional network connection, for example, aconnection established over a local, metropolitan or wide area network,or a connection established using combinations of these and othernetworks. The reporting system 120 may thus be co-located with thedistribution system 102, or located remotely from the distributionsystem 102. The reporting system 120 as shown comprises a reportingplatform 122, a graphical servlet 124, and a reporting database 126.These elements of reporting system 120 may be implemented on a singleserver or other set of processing devices of system 100, or each suchelement may be implemented on separate arrangements of one or moreprocessing devices. For example, the database 126 may comprise athird-party database, such as a server equipped with conventionalOracle, IBM DB2 or Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL) databasesoftware. Coupled to the reporting system 120 via a connection 128 is auser terminal 130. The connection 128, like the connection 115, need nottake any particular form, and may be a network connection, a wirelessconnection, a cable, etc.

The reporting platform 122 and graphical servlet 124 are examples ofelements that are more generally referred to herein as a report serverand a graphical server, respectively.

The term “servlet” as used herein should be understood to refergenerally to one or more code modules that run in a server applicationto answer client requests. The code modules may comprise Java codemodules, or modules based on other programming languages. The inventiondoes not require the use of servlets. Thus, a given graphical server inan embodiment of the invention can be implemented without the use of aservlet.

The reporting system 120 generally provides a call center manager,supervisor, administrator or other user at terminal 130 with access toinformation regarding performance of the agents in processing calls orother communications. In the illustrative embodiment, that informationmay comprise timeline visualizations, generated using one or more imagefiles, which greatly facilitate an understanding of call centeroperation. Additional details regarding interaction between the elements122, 124 and 126 of the reporting system 120 and the user terminal 130will be described below with reference to FIG. 7.

It should be noted that the call center system 100 of FIG. 1 may includeadditional elements not explicitly shown in the figure, such as routers,gateways or other network elements. The system may also or alternativelyinclude one or more communication system switches, such as a DEFINITY®Enterprise Communication Service (ECS) communication system switchavailable from Avaya Inc. of Basking Ridge, N.J., USA. Another examplecall processing switch suitable for use in conjunction with the presentinvention is the MultiVantage™ communication system switch, alsoavailable from Avaya Inc. Various elements of the FIG. 1 system may beimplemented using known elements of these and other conventionalswitches, or portions or combinations of such switch elements.

Thus, it is to be appreciated that the invention can be implemented insystems using a wide variety of other types and arrangements ofdistribution systems, agent terminals, queues, selectors, reportingsystems, user terminals and other elements. The particular number andarrangement of such elements of the FIG. 1 system are merely exemplary,and may vary depending upon the needs of a given implementation.

FIG. 2 shows a simplified block diagram of one possible implementationof a processing device of the call center system 100 of FIG. 1. Theprocessing device of FIG. 2 comprises a processor 200 coupled to amemory 202 and to one or more interfaces 204. The processing device maybe viewed as representing a single server or multiple servers or othercomputers that comprise one or more elements of the reporting system120. As another example, the processing device of FIG. 2 may be viewedas representing a workstation, a laptop or desktop personal computer, apersonal digital assistant or other device comprising user terminal 130.In this case, the processing device may further comprise an outputdevice such as display 205, for presenting timeline visualizations andother call center performance information in graphical form inaccordance with the techniques described herein. The processor 200 maycomprise a computer, central processing unit, or microprocessor, orportions or combinations of such elements. The memory 202 may compriseelectronic memory, such as random access memory (RAM) or read-onlymemory (ROM), magnetic memory, optical memory, etc. in any combination.The illustrative embodiments may be implemented at least in part in theform of one or more software programs which run on processing devicesconfigured as shown in FIG. 2. Those skilled in the art can readilyprogram such devices to implement the various techniques describedherein.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, the call centerof FIG. 1 is configured to include capabilities for presentingperformance information using timeline visualizations. This aspect ofthe present invention will be described in greater detail below, withreference to the diagrams of FIGS. 3 through 7.

FIG. 3 shows a type of tabular detail report that may be generated inthe FIG. 1 system using reporting system 122. This particular detailreport, also referred to as a call trace report, shows the detailsassociated with the processing of two calls, having call identifiers 111and 211, by a given agent of the system 100. The trace report as shownincludes columns for call identifier, start time, end time, agentidentifier, state or event, and other data, and may be presented, by wayof example, on a screen of display 205 in user terminal 130. This typeof report may be generated using an otherwise conventional third-partyreporting platform 122, such as the Cognos ReportNet™ reporting platformfrom Cognos Incorporated of Ottawa, Canada. The particular format of thereport may be configured in a straightforward manner using a reportauthoring tool, such as the Cognos ReportStudio™ tool. Other examples ofknown reporting platforms suitable for use with the present inventioninclude Crystal Reports™ and Brio™. However, as indicated previouslyherein, tabular detail reports such as that shown in FIG. 3 can beproblematic in that such reports fail to provide a concise and intuitivevisual representation of the contact details, and hence can be difficultfor a contact manager or other user to interpret.

The illustrative embodiment of the invention overcomes these and otherdifficulties commonly associated with tabular detail reports. In thisembodiment, a much more concise and intuitive visual representation ofcontact details or other call center process information is provided.Moreover, such information is generated via a reporting system which canstore information in a reporting database and is compatible withexisting reporting platforms, such as the above-noted Cognos ReportNet™.Advantageously, the illustrative embodiment provides a datavisualization tool that allows users to obtain a better understanding ofcontact center processes.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a call timeline that will be used indescribing the illustrative embodiment. This timeline in this example isa generic view of the process of handling a typical call in the system100 of FIG. 1. The timeline shows certain events (e.g., queued, offeredto agent, accepted, agent disconnected and completed) that occur duringthe processing of the call, and associated states of the call (e.g., inqueue, alerting, active and wrap-up). More specifically, the sequence ofevents and their respective states are as follows. The call firstarrives at a queue, after which the call enters the in queue state. Oncean agent becomes available, the call is offered to the agent, afterwhich the call is in the alerting state (e.g., ringing). After the callis accepted by the agent, the call enters the active state. When theagent is disconnected, the call enters the wrap-up state, and subsequentto the wrap-up the call is considered completed at the agent. It shouldbe understood that these particular events and states, and othersdescribed herein, are presented by way of illustrative example only, andshould not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in anyway.

In the illustrative embodiment, a timeline of the type shown in FIG. 4is made more readily understandable to a call center manager or otheruser by utilizing different drawing objects or other image data torepresent different events and states. For example, the symbols in FIG.5A may be used to represent call processing events in the timeline, andthe line styles in FIG. 5B are used to represent call states in thetimeline. Referring initially to FIG. 5A, the events that are showninclude queued, offered to agent, completed, accepted, contact held,disconnected, and agent disconnected. Each is represented by acorresponding distinct graphical symbol. Similarly, with reference toFIG. 5B, the states that are shown include in queue, alerting, active,on-hold and wrap-up, and each is represented by a distinct line style.

Although not illustrated as such in the figures, the different symbolsand line styles used to represent respective events and states may makeuse of color in alternative embodiments. The symbols and line styles maybe made user configurable, so that, for example, the user could changethe symbol used to represent the arrival of a call, or use a differentline style to indicate that a call is on hold. Also, rectangles or othershapes with different fill colors and fill patterns could be usedinstead of lines. Numerous alternative arrangements of symbols, linestyles or other elements will be readily apparent to those skilled inthe art.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a graphical display that may be generated inthe system 100 of FIG. 1 utilizing timeline visualizations constructedusing the symbols and line styles of respective FIGS. 5A and 5B. Thisdisplay comprises a report with timeline visualizations that may bepresented on display 205 of user terminal 130 in system 100. The reportgenerally provides the same information as the tabular detail report ofFIG. 3, but in a concise and intuitive visual representation. Like theFIG. 3 report, the FIG. 6 report deals with the processing of two calls,denoted by call identifiers 111 and 211, by a single agent. It includescolumns for call identifier, start time, end time, routing and timelinevisualization. There is a single row for each of the calls, with agraphical representation using the appropriate event symbols and stateline styles to convey the call processing information. Although notshown in the figure, a time scale may be added showing more accuratelywhen the events occurred.

A report such as that shown in FIG. 6 may be generated by, for example,a report author or other user selecting a timeline visualization featurefrom a list of available report items in a report authoring toolassociated with reporting platform 122. Displayed fields, such as callidentifier, start time, end time, routing, etc. may be similarlyselected, using, by way of example, drag-and-drop from a palette ofavailable features as in conventional report authoring tools.

From the timelines shown in the FIG. 6 example, it can be seen that thefirst call is queued and then quickly offered to the agent. The entry inthe routing column for this call is “agent pool,” which means that thecall was queued and then offered to the next available agent. Afteralerting for a few seconds, the agent accepts the call. After a few moreseconds, the agent puts the call on hold. A few seconds later, thesecond call rings at the agent. This is a “specific agent” call, meaningthat the caller called the direct number of the agent. The agentimmediately takes the first call off of hold, then disconnects a fewseconds later, then accepts the second call. While active on the secondcall, the agent performs wrap-up on the first call, then proceeds totalk on the second call for several minutes (off the graph). From thetimelines, it is clear that the agent was working on the first call, sawthe second call come in (possibly a personal call), hung up on the firstcall, and then took the second call. The visualization in this examplemakes it very easy for a supervisor to identify inappropriate agentbehavior at a glance.

Timelines for different entity types, e.g., agents, calls, queues andtrunks, could be presented simultaneously in the same report. Also, byfiltering on entity attributes, e.g., agent name, and also on otherfactors such as time, there are many different ways the data can bepresented to the user. Any entity attributes, e.g., supervisor name,call direction (inbound or outbound), etc. available in a givenreporting platform could be included in such a report.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the processing flow associated withgenerating a graphical display with timeline visualization such as thatof FIG. 6. In this example, it is assumed that the reporting platform122 comprises a conventional Cognos ReportNet™ reporting platform, andthat the database 126 comprises an SQL server. Of course, other types ofreporting platforms and databases may be used in alternativeembodiments. The figure generally shows the interaction between userterminal 130, reporting platform 122, graphical servlet 124 and database126 in generating a report comprising one or more timelinevisualizations, and generally includes the following steps denoted steps1 through 8:

1. A user at terminal 130 runs a report by launching a hypertexttransfer protocol (HTTP) request to the reporting platform 122.

2. The reporting platform 122 generates an SQL query, then executes thequery against the database 126.

3. The database 126 returns the data for the report, plus dynamicallygenerated uniform resource locators (URLs) for the correspondingtimeline images.

4. The reporting platform 122 generates a report in the form ofhypertext mark-up language (HTML) pages and delivers those pages to abrowser running on the user terminal 130.

5. As the browser renders the report, it encounters HTML image tags forthe timeline images. For each timeline, the browser requests the imagefrom the graphical servlet 124 using the dynamically generated URL. TheURL contains any required parameters, e.g., call ID and start and endtimes for the timeline.

6. For each image, the graphical servlet 124 queries the database 126 toretrieve the required data, e.g., call segments.

7. The database 126 returns the data used to generate the timelineimages.

8. The graphical servlet 124 returns the image files to the browser ofthe user terminal 130 for display in the report.

It should be noted that these particular processing steps should not beviewed as requirements of the invention, and may be replaced withdifferent operations or otherwise varied in other embodiments.

The illustrative embodiments described above provide a number ofsignificant advantages over conventional techniques. For example, thedescribed techniques advantageously provide concise and intuitivegraphical representations of event and state details for calls and othercall center processes, in the form of timeline visualizations, and allowdelivery of the timelines through otherwise conventional reportingtools. The timelines may be generated for a variety of call centerentities such as agents, calls, queues, trunks, and the like. Thisallows simultaneous visualizations of different entity types, e.g., calland agent state, in the same report. Web-based reports involvingtimeline visualizations can be created dynamically and integrated withreporting platforms and third-party databases.

The improved report of FIG. 6 replaces the difficult-to-understandtabular detail report of FIG. 3, presenting the same information in amuch more compact and understandable form, thereby reducing the amountof time required to understand process flows and making it easier tomonitor agents and other call center entities. For example, call centermanagers and other users are provided with a better understanding of howagents handle calls, spend their time, deal with multiple contactssimultaneously, etc.

The techniques described herein are also applicable to other businessprocesses, e.g., order fulfillment or any other transactional systemwhere reports are generated detailing one or more transactions.

It should again be emphasized that the exemplary configuration of thecall center shown in FIG. 1 may be altered to incorporate a wide varietyof different arrangements of elements to provide the call processingfunctions described herein. For example, those skilled in the art willappreciated that a call center configured in accordance with theinvention may be distributed over multiple geographically-dispersedphysical sites. In such an arrangement, certain of the processingoperations described above may be performed in a remote or centralizedsystem while a given call or other communication is delivered to anavailable agent at a particular local site. The term “call center” asused herein is intended to include these and other alternative systemsin which the present invention can be implemented.

It should also be noted that the invention may be implemented in theform of a computer-readable medium or other similar medium containingsoftware which, when executed by a computer or other type of processingdevice, will cause the processing device to implement the processingfunctions described above. For example, the agent selector 114,reporting platform 122, graphical servlet 124, database 126 and otherelements of system 100 may each be implemented at least in part as oneor more software programs stored in a memory or any other computerreadable medium associated with the system, and executed by a processoror other processing hardware associated with the system. As indicatedpreviously, a wide variety of alternative arrangements of hardware,software and firmware may be used to provide communication processingoperations in accordance with the invention.

These and numerous other alternative embodiments within the scope of thefollowing claims will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

1. A method of generating timeline visualization informationcharacterizing a process in a call center, utilizing a reporting systemcomprising a report server, a graphical server, and a database, themethod comprising the steps of: receiving a request for a report,relating to one or more specified aspects of the call center process, inthe report server from a user terminal; generating a query from thereport server to the database; utilizing information retrieved from thedatabase responsive to the query to generate a report for delivery tothe user terminal, wherein the report comprises at least one timelinehaving a plurality of image identifiers associated therewith; andsupplying from the graphical server to the user terminal image filescorresponding to respective ones of the image identifiers to therebypermit generation of a visualization of the timeline at the userterminal.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the timeline comprises aplurality of distinct symbols representative of respective events of thecall center process and a plurality of distinct line stylesrepresentative of respective states of the call center process.
 3. Themethod of claim 2 wherein the call center process comprises the handlingof one or more calls by a particular agent of the call center.
 4. Themethod of claim 3 wherein the events of the call center process compriseone or more of a queued event, an offered to agent event, a completedevent, an accepted event, a contact held event, a call disconnectedevent, and an agent disconnected event.
 5. The method of claim 3 whereinthe states of the call center process comprise one or more of an inqueue state, an alerting state, an active state, an on-hold state and awrap-up state.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein the graphical servercomprises a graphical servlet.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein thereport server comprises a reporting platform.
 8. The method of claim 1wherein the report server and the graphical server are implemented on asingle processing device.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein the reportserver and the graphical server are each implemented on separatearrangements of one or more processing devices.
 10. The method of claim1 wherein the request for the report comprises an HTTP request generatedin a browser of the user terminal.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein thequery generated by the report server to the database comprises an SQLquery.
 12. The method of claim 1 wherein the image identifiers of thetimeline comprise URLs supplied by the database to the report serverresponsive to the query.
 13. The method of claim 1 wherein the graphicalserver supplies the image files corresponding to respective ones of theimage identifiers responsive to one or more requests from a browser ofthe user terminal.
 14. The method of claim 13 wherein for a given suchrequest from the browser of the user terminal, the graphical servergenerates a query to the database, and receives in response to the queryimage data associated with at least one of the image files.
 15. Areporting system for use in generating timeline visualizationinformation characterizing a process in a call center, the systemcomprising: a report server; a graphical server; and a database; thereport server receiving a request for a report, relating to one or morespecified aspects of the call center process, from a user terminal,generating a query to the database, and utilizing information retrievedfrom the database responsive to the query to generate a report fordelivery to the user terminal; wherein the report comprises at least onetimeline having a plurality of image identifiers associated therewith;and wherein the graphical server supplies to the user terminal imagefiles corresponding to respective ones of the image identifiers tothereby permit generation of a visualization of the timeline at the userterminal.
 16. The system of claim 15 wherein the report server and thegraphical server are implemented on a single processing device.
 17. Thesystem of claim 15 wherein the report server and the graphical serverare each implemented on separate arrangements of one or more processingdevices.
 18. The system of claim 15 wherein the report server, thegraphical server and the database are implemented using one or moreprocessing devices each comprising a processor coupled to a memory. 19.The system of claim 15 wherein the timeline comprises a plurality ofdistinct symbols representative of respective events of the call centerprocess and a plurality of distinct line styles representative ofrespective states of the call center process.
 20. An article ofmanufacture comprising a machine-readable storage medium containing oneor more software programs for generating timeline visualizationinformation characterizing a process in a call center, utilizing areporting system comprising a report server, a graphical server, and adatabase, wherein the one or more software programs, when executed inone or more processing devices, cause the system to perform the stepsof: receiving a request for a report, relating to one or more specifiedaspects of the call center process, in the report server from a userterminal; generating a query from the report server to the database;utilizing information retrieved from the database responsive to thequery to generate a report for delivery to the user terminal, whereinthe report comprises at least one timeline having a plurality of imageidentifiers associated therewith; and supplying from the graphicalserver to the user terminal image files corresponding to respective onesof the image identifiers to thereby permit generation of a visualizationof the timeline at the user terminal.